Marketing_Management_14th_Edition-min

166 PART 3 CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS
TABLE 6.3
Understanding Consumer Behavior
Who buys our product or service?
Who makes the decision to buy the product?
Who influences the decision to buy the product?
How is the purchase decision made? Who assumes what role?
What does the customer buy? What needs must be satisfied?
Why do customers buy a particular brand?
Where do they go or look to buy the product or service?
When do they buy? Any seasonality factors?
How is our product perceived by customers?
What are customers’ attitudes toward our product?
What social factors might influence the purchase decision?
Do customers’ lifestyles influence their decisions?
How do personal or demographic factors influence the purchase decision?
Source: Based on figure 1.7 from George Belch and Michael Belch, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications
Perspective, 8th ed. (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 2009).
|Fig. 6.4|
Five-Stage Model of
the Consumer Buying
Process
Problem
recognition
Information
search
Evaluation
of alternatives
Purchase
decision
Postpurchase
behavior
2. The time between exposure to information and encoding has been shown generally to
produce only gradual decay. Cognitive psychologists believe memory is extremely durable,
so once information becomes stored in memory, its strength of association decays
very slowly. 50
3. Information may be available in memory but not be accessible for recall without the proper
retrieval cues or reminders. The effectiveness of retrieval cues is one reason marketing inside a
supermarket or any retail store is so critical—the actual product packaging, the use of in-store
mini-billboard displays, and so on. The information they contain and the reminders they
provide of advertising or other information already conveyed outside the store will be prime
determinants of consumer decision making.
The Buying Decision Process:
The Five-Stage Model
The basic psychological processes we’ve reviewed play an important role in consumers’ actual buying
decisions. 51 Table 6.3 provides a list of some key consumer behavior questions marketers
should ask in terms of who, what, when, where, how, and why.
Smart companies try to fully understand customers’ buying decision process—all the experiences
in learning, choosing, using, and even disposing of a product. 52 Marketing scholars have developed
a “stage model” of the process (see Figure 6.4). The consumer typically passes through
five stages: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision,
and postpurchase behavior. Clearly, the buying process starts long before the actual purchase and
has consequences long afterward. 53
Consumers don’t always pass through all five stages—they may skip or reverse some. When you
buy your regular brand of toothpaste, you go directly from the need to the purchase decision, skipping
information search and evaluation. The model in Figure 6.4 provides a good frame of reference,
however, because it captures the full range of considerations that arise when a consumer faces
a highly involving new purchase. 54 Later in the chapter, we will consider other ways consumers
make decisions that are less calculated.